La Chaussée, Pierre Claude Nivelle de

La Chaussée, Pierre Claude Nivelle de (1692–1754), French dramatist, and the chief exponent of 18th-century comédie larmoyante. Though he was already a well-known figure in literary society La Chaussée was 40 before he wrote his first play, La Fausse Antipathie (1733). This and Le Préjugé à la mode (1735) were both well received, and may be said, with their mingling of pathos and comedy, to typify ‘domestic drama’. La Chaussée was a wealthy man with somewhat frank and licentious tastes, and it is clear from his prologue to La Fausse Antipathie that he wrote as he did less out of conviction than because he saw that this was what his audience wanted. He produced a number of later plays in the same vein, including Mélanide (1741), Paméla (1743), adapted from Richardson's novel, and La Gouvernante (1747), a foretaste of East Lynne. In his own day La Chaussée was immensely popular; he was elected to the French Academy in 1736, and his plays were translated into Dutch, English, and Italian.